


Childhood

by Amarxlen



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Childhood, Day 2 Prompt, F/M, Talking, Tumblr Prompts, assembling the pieces of a ship, full list on tumblr, mentions eraqus, mentions xehanort, vanitas x aqua - Freeform, vanqua week, vanqua week 2019, vanquaweek, vanquaweek2019, void gear and stormfall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-20 15:23:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18995335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amarxlen/pseuds/Amarxlen
Summary: A response to the tumblr prompt "Childhood" for Vanqua week. Prompts can be found on the tumblr of void gear and stormfall.





	Childhood

**Vanqua Week -- Day 2 Childhood**

He wasn’t exactly sure how it happened.

He was tired, that much he knew. He was tired of creating Unversed and then destroying them, tired of running and chasing, tired of hurting, hurting, hurting, and all the while knowing that Ventus was off running around to other worlds, making friends and happy and not hurting and—

Not needing Vanitas as much as Vanitas needed him.

Not needing Vanitas at all.

So he wasn’t exactly sure how it happened, but it _was_ happening, and so he let it. He and the blue-haired warrior of light, Aqua, were exchanging words, without exchanging blows. Not for her lack of trying, though. As soon as she’d seen him, she’d summoned her Keyblade, and the weapon glowed with magic. In response, Vanitas had scoffed, and promptly ignored her.

He didn’t have to look to know that this had caught her off guard, and in turn just made her suspicious that this was his intention. To knock her off kilter and then strike when her guard was down. It made sense. It definitely sounded like something he’d do.

But he couldn’t bring himself to care.

Out there somewhere, an Unversed was destroyed and despite himself, he winced. He’d long since gotten used to the pain that ran through him every time one of his creations was destroyed — it was one of the things that made him stronger, _create, destroy, hurt, repeat_ — but this had been a particularly big one. He knew where the new scar would run, slicing clean through his back with the blow that had come from above.

And that was when she’d finally lowered her weapon and approached him slowly.

“Are you… in pain?” she asked.

He snorted behind his mask, fingers tightening around the edge of the bench he sat on.

“What a stupid question.”

“So you are then.”

The blue-haired girl was undeterred by his snark, and in fact drew closer. Vanitas could feel her eyes roving over him, trying to find the source of his pain.

“What’s it to you?”

“I…”

He waited, counting the seconds up in his head, almost up to a full minute before he clicked his tongue.

_Figures._

She was just like everyone else, pretending to care when it was so painfully obvious that she didn’t.

“I didn’t know,” she finally said.

“And why would you? It’s none of your business, and aren’t you supposed to be destroying creatures of darkness anyway, _Keyblade Master_?”

He meant to say the title with bitterness, but it only came out half as harsh as he’d intended it.

“That is part of the mission the Master has tasked me with.”

Vanitas laughed scornfully.

“ _The Master_. As if those old coots know anything about anything. Sit up on their thrones all high and mighty while the rest of us do their bidding.”

“Don’t speak ill of the Master! He knows what’s best!”

“And who says that? Him? What gives him the right to decide any of that? What gives any of them the right to decide?”

“The Master is wise, he knows what he’s talking about.”

Vanitas scoffed again.

“Sure he does. Didn’t even know that old geezer still wants to forge the χ-blade and restart the Keyblade War.”

Aqua drew in a sharp gasp.

“Old geezer? Do you mean… Master Xehanort?”

“Ding-ding-ding, winner! Too bad we’re not in Disney Town, or I’d win you a prize.”

Her face was now a pretty shade of red, and despite himself, he found he was grinning again. Seemed this Keyblade Master wasn’t as in the know as she thought she was. There was a certain satisfaction to be gained from pulling the rug out from under her. The mental image was comical, and he made a point to try to do that some time in the future.

“Why would he want to do that? What is the χ-blade?”

Vanitas shrugged.

“Beats me. _The Master_ doesn’t tell the neophytes why he wants what he does. And the χ-blade,” he said, carefully enunciating the word as though she were stupid — and he was only partially certain she wasn’t — “is the blade that is forged when a heart of pure light and one of pure darkness clash.”

Her eyes narrowed, and the air suddenly felt charged. So she’d caught on to that quick enough.

“And you’re the being of pure darkness.”

“I’ll write you an IOU for that second prize.” Her glare intensified and he sighed. So much for a surprisingly pleasant conversation. “The χ-blade needs light and dark to be complete, just like the worlds, just like Kingdom Hearts. A balance.”

“That’s not what the Master taught us.”

And there it was again. _Us_. The three of them.

_An unbreakable connection._

He felt himself seized by jealousy, and had to quickly stamp down the negative emotions that would create another Unversed. He’d slipped and told her so much today, and for what? Why? He couldn’t reveal to her that he was the source of the Unversed as well, though he couldn’t say why it mattered anymore.

“There’s a lot of things your Master didn’t teach you because he thought he knew better. A lot of things my Master decided I should know from the moment I was…” He paused on the word, about to say born, but that wasn’t entirely right. He wasn’t sure there was a word that would fit the events of his creation. And so that’s what he went with. “...created.”

Aqua was silent, but he could tell from her body language and the tension in the air that she was heavily debating on whether or not she should engage him in a fight or not. In the end though, she must have decided she’d gotten what she needed from him, or that he posed no threat. He tried to be suitably irritated by the thought, but instead he felt relief. For the first time in a long time, he didn’t want to fight.

“The two of us must have had very different childhoods,” she said instead.

He laughed shortly.

“Childhood, sure. If you could even call it that.”

When he let himself look at her from the corner of his eyes, he found her staring at him. Not with anger or disdain like he’d been expecting, but with something much worse.

Pity.


End file.
